


Shooting Stars

by coldsunshine



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: (but also kind of a gremlin), Crushes, First Crush, Kuroo Tetsurou is a Good Friend, M/M, Pining, Rating May Change, team shenanigans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-01
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-05-30 10:52:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6420889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coldsunshine/pseuds/coldsunshine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kenma has only had one friend for most of his life, and that's all he's ever needed. At least, until he met Shouyou. Now he can't stop thinking about him. Kenma's not entirely sure what that means.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Falling

It was just another day. Just another day of volleyball, of a sport where passion was gasoline and he simply had no fuel. A faint trickle of joy (...or occasionally more) leaked out of his heart for his video games, but everything else in the world was static noise in the background. People were just an energy drain. They set him on edge like no boss battle could. He didn’t care what they thought of him, but he couldn’t stop analyzing every little move they made, trying to measure how they felt about him no matter how many times he told himself not to pay attention. After so many years, he gave up trying to stop the habit and instead focused on managing how much energy it would take and planning around the drain. When it came to volleyball, certain teammates took less energy than others, and for a few he was able to tune them out entirely, even while they were speaking. None of them captured his attention, and even though it was sometimes uncomfortable to be mostly alone, he had no desire to make friends. He had Kuroo, and he didn’t really need- or want- anyone else.

But that boy was different. That boy he met on the street... he was like so many other boys, but Kenma was drawn to him unlike anyone else. Where Kenma was a match, that boy was a bonfire doused with lighter fluid. Something pulled at his heart when he spoke. His stomach rolled when he laughed. He couldn’t think when he smiled. It was like all the air got sucked out of him, like they were in a vacuum and he was the only star in space. It was a bit dramatic for Kenma. But Hinata Shouyou was probably worthy of the full three-act play. (They were usually three acts, right?)

It was easy to think about these things sitting alone in his room, half engrossed in a game while his mind wandered endlessly to a redheaded boy that had a laugh like a meteor shower. The trouble was how often he found his mind coming back to him. Aside from Kuroo, he had never made friends. It was only natural that he was confused by the process, it was still completely new to him. He was a friend, and it just kept taking him by surprise, he figured.

 

It was early afternoon when the first text made his phone sing an awkwardly chipper alert tone. Kenma was on his way to practice with Kuroo and typed his typical short responses quickly. As ever, Shouyou took much longer to respond. He was still getting used to the keyboard, but was always sure to include at least five emojis and seven exclamation points in every lengthy message he sent. Kenma found his relentless enthusiasm endearing, somehow.

“Is that your boyfriend, or your mom?” Kenma looked up in confusion.

“What?” Kuroo asked, “Those are the only two people you ever text besides me. Which one is it?” Kuroo snorted when Kenma looked down at his feet in embarrassment.

“Relax,” he said, not waiting for a complaint from Kenma, “I know he’s not really your boyfriend.” Kenma knew perfectly well that he was joking. He told him so, and Kuroo just shrugged dramatically. But that didn’t stop him from feeling like he was suddenly inside an oven.

“He must be pretty bad with a phone, Shrimpy.” They had reached the gym, and Kuroo must have noticed Kenma staring intently into his phone, waiting for an answer. That, or he stopped hearing his message tone every thirty seconds.

“He’s taking forever to reply,” Kenma sounded whinier than he meant.

“Maybe practice started?”

“Maybe.” Kenma sighed and tucked his phone into his jacket as they entered the locker room to change. It was only a ten minute warm-up run and Kenma was out of breath and exhausted, just like at every practice. As he expected, there was a text from Shouyou when he checked his phone during the pause between exercises.

 

<         _Sorry, practice started!!!! ^ o ^;; Kageyama_

_keeps yelling at me about always having my_

_phone with me and constantly using it : < _

_he’s such a butt sometimes!!!!_

 

Kenma ignored a growing conversation from his teammates to answer.

_My practice started too. I’ll text you at 7._

He deleted his message, thought, then typed it again.

_My practice started too. I’ll text you at 7 v . v ✌️_

Shouyou responded immediately.

 

_<          Okay!!!!!!!!! ^ O ^  :D  o 3 o_

 

Kenma tucked his phone into his jacket and set it back on top of his bag. He jogged over to Kuroo’s side. Kuroo was looking at him funny. So were the rest of the teammates clustered around him. He looked from the ground to Kuroo and back again, hoping for an answer, but not sure if he wanted one.

“What’s going on?” Yamamoto spoke instead. Kenma looked at him, not understanding the question.

“You smiled,” he explained.

“Huh?”

“You smiled when you were on your phone. I didn’t know you could smile.” Kenma’s stomach collapsed in on itself and then imploded. Well... he thought his heart skipped a beat. That’s physically possible, at least.

“Oh,” he answered blankly. Only the coach’s whistle saved Kenma from uncertain territory that had come so close. He was grateful that Nekomata’s speech didn’t happen to involve him at the moment, letting him wonder what exactly had happened. Did he really smile? He didn’t feel it. Did he always smile, or was this an accident? Maybe that’s why Kuroo was so entertained when he texted Shouyou.

“Hey, pay attention!” Yamamoto poked a finger into Kenma’s side. He frowned at the second-year.

“Come on, we’re getting started!”

 

Practice moved along as it always did, with Kenma trying not to catch any more attention than necessary and Yamamoto trying to catch all of the attention he possibly could at any given moment. As always, Nekomata seemed to see some secret that Kenma was trying to hide, whether or not he truly had one, and was tiringly smug about it. Kuroo was excessively dramatic in his speech at the end of practice, and they walked to the train station and then home together. It was a little after 6:30 when he got back, and by the time he had finished eating dinner with his family it was already after 7. He flopped onto his bed, trying to think of what to say.

_>                                                             How was practice? _

Shouyou didn’t answer right away. Then he didn’t answer for five minutes. Then ten. He assumed Shouyou wouldn’t care about the exact time, but he wasn’t totally sure. Maybe he was annoyed by having to wait? It was thirty minutes now. He thought about sending a second text, but couldn’t bring himself to ask for any more of Shouyou’s attention. Besides, if he was annoyed, a second text would just make it worse. He tucked his hair behind his ears and pulled out his DS, hoping to distract himself with his newest game. He had only finished the character creation yesterday. That always took the longest. It took him at least 40 minutes to decide upon naming the character “Youkou”, though it seemed too unlike the names he usually chose. It was too… vibrant? Something about the name struck him as odd, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He let it go and let himself fall into the plot.

It was almost an hour after the first text that he got an answer. He patted around on his desk blindly for his phone, only pausing his game once he unlocked it in order to read the response.

< _Kenma, I’m sooorrrryyy!!!!! Daichi made a_

_bunch of us come over to do homework_

_because we’re “falling behind” > o < he _

_took my phone toooooo!!!!!!!!! he wouldn’t_

_give it back until we were done :T_

This time, Kenma was fully aware of the smile threatening to spread across his face.

>   _Is a “bunch” of you just you and Kageyama?_

<  _ >:O no!!!!!!! _

<  _:( okay maybe it was maybe it wasn’t……..._

>  _sure._

< _it’s not that big of a problem, just because_

_I missed a few assignments doesn’t mean I’m_

_failing out of school ; n ;_

>  _How many is a “few” exactly?_

<   _Keennnmaaaaa!!!! ; A ; you’re starting to sound_

_like Tsuki!!!!! he kept making fun of the phone_

_charm I got, it looks kind of like yours, too!!!_

_It’s a crow, like our mascot!! :D_

> _Are you even allowed to play volleyball, still?_

< _It wasn’t that many assignments, okay!!!!!! :c_

> _Okay._

< _It wasn’t!!!!_

>  _Alright, alright. How was practice, aside from that?_

<  _It was really great!!! :O Ukai-sensei showed me_

_how to do a quick from Sugawara’s tosses even_

_when he doesn’t hit it like Kageyama does, which_

_is like, super ultra fast!!!! you saw it at our last_

_practice, right????? He does his toss, and when I_

_hit it it’s like nyooooooooooooooooooooom!!!!_

_only way shorter actually because it’s soooooo_

_fast!!!! :O :O :O_

Kenma covered a smile he couldn’t stop with his hand. Even though he was alone, he was still so aware of himself. His room was abnormally warm, he thought. It was summer, after all, so it made sense for it to be hot out. As the conversation continued, there began to be pauses in Shouyou’s responses, some a few minutes, others much longer. At one point, Shouyou asked if he was getting tired. Kenma told him he wasn’t, and Shouyou’s response was only a string of bizarre emojis, probably some way of expressing surprise. Kenma didn’t mind. He even replied with a few cat emojis himself. Shouyou seemed to like that a lot, for some reason. The delays grew longer, but Kenma didn’t reach for other games. He simply waited for Shouyou’s next text, however short, and however long the conversation lagged on.

Shouyou finally stopped responding all together. Kenma frowned at his phone, then turned to look at his clock. It was much later than he realized. He always stayed up late, but Shouyou probably wasn’t so used to it. He likely needed a lot of sleep to fuel his constant energy. Kenma rubbed his eyes and sent one last text.

> _Goodnight, Shouyou._

He checked the time again. 1:26. It wasn’t as late as he normally stayed up, but Kenma locked his phone and put it on his desk, anyway. He laid back in bed, pulling his blankets around him and curling up. Before he could stop himself, he started wondering about what Shouyou looked like when he slept. He was probably still holding his phone and fell asleep with it in hand. There was something oddly pleasant in that image of him, probably on his stomach with the sheets on top of his head. That seemed like him. Kenma sighed. His thoughts were wandering again, endlessly coming back to Shouyou.

 _Shouyou._ He liked the way his name sounded, the way it felt in his mouth as it left his lips. He frowned. What an odd thought. He sighed again. An odd thought among so many others like it. He couldn’t help the worry that grew as more came to him. Like how warm he felt when Kuroo asked about Shouyou, or the way his heart sped up when his new friend took too long to respond. He didn’t stop feeling overheated when he finally answered, though. He never felt so nervous when Kuroo was slow, but then again, Kuroo was always slow because of how old his phone was. He would always rest his chin on Kenma’s head and push his phone in his friend’s face to ask for help. That was normal to him; it felt natural, even, that level of contact, but when Shouyou held his arm out of excitement at their last practice match (he had a new phone! Kenma, look!) Kenma’s heart was practically beating out of his chest. He had to blame his flushed face on being startled, and it didn’t help that Shouyou started apologizing profusely.

The outlook certainly wasn’t good. Nor was the look of confusion Kuroo gave him that same practice- Shouyou had brushed Kenma’s hair behind his ears for him, because he couldn’t possibly see with his hair in his face like that. He made a fuss when Kuroo sometimes tried the same thing. He had just felt frozen in place when Shouyou had done it, that’s all it was. Kenma pulled his hair out from behind his ears, flustered in the isolation of his room.

Oh no.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ao3 doesn't use indents like other documents and all, so I'm sorry if the texting segment is really hard to read! All comments and feedback are welcome :D


	2. In Too Deep

The entire day, Kenma’s head had felt like a TV that couldn’t get a proper signal. Everything came in as static, and the sounds he heard came in broken and garbled. He was stuck on Shouyou. When did this happen? Did it sneak up on him overnight, or had it been following at his heels for weeks, and had only now caught up to him? The latter seemed more likely, given how often they spoke. The way his teammates and family so casually recognized Shouyou was a testament to that. But how did Shouyou make him feel this way? And why him, of all people?

Kenma tried piecing it together during class, and during lunch, and then after school on his way to practice. He stared even more distantly while getting changed, and responded even less to the mess of conversations from his teammates at the start of practice.

“ _Hey_ ,” Kuroo broke into his thoughts.

“What, did you not hear me?” He didn’t. Kenma just stared at him.

“Are you going to stand there all practice, or are you going to get in position?” Kenma hummed to himself. Kuroo rolled his eyes as he understood.

“You’re supposed to be over _there_ ,” he said before steering his friend by the shoulders into place.

“Now try to pay attention.”

He tried and failed. His tosses were deplorable. He kept spacing out in the few seconds between each person and was each time only noticing at the last moment that the ball was being tossed to him. While Nekomata noticed immediately (particularly because it was a spiking drill, with Kenma performing the same set each time) his usual smug expression was more than absent. He knew very well from his experience with Kenma that what he said only stood to make the problem worse; instead, he paced along the sidelines with increasing agitation. The drill was supposed to be for the spikers, but here the setter was the biggest problem.

 

Even that only broke the surface of Kenma’s thoughts. Nekomata subtly moved onto another drill, allowing Kenma to again not listen and to continue having no idea of what was going on. This time, Kuroo was preoccupied, and didn’t push him along. Kenma simply hoped he was standing around the right spot as the exercise began.

 

He hadn’t checked his phone for a while, he realized. Shouyou didn’t text him in the morning before the start of school, and after that, his phone had died. He couldn’t help wondering if Shouyou had texted him during the lunch break, when he’d been distracted by, well, Shouyou.

 

Kenma heard someone shouting before he felt anything. It was a brief sound, and very soon drowned out by the smack of a volleyball against his face, hitting so hard he was knocked to the ground. It hit right around his cheekbone and made his eyes water, the injured left side in particular. Some of the team was still shouting, mostly his name, trying to ask how he was and what happened.

Without saying anything or looking at anyone, he stood, and walked mechanically to the side of the gym and sat down, holding the side of his face. He stared into his knees, vision blurred by the tears forming in only one eye.

“Jeez, Kenma,” Kuroo crouched down in front of him, looking less smug than usual.

“How did you miss that?” Kenma avoided answering by taking the bag of ice that Kuroo offered and pressing it to his cheek. The ball seemed to have slapped him back into reality, for now he heard distinctly the quiet commotion of practice both continuing and dawdling as teammates spoke to each other in mild confusion while Nekomata attempted to corral them back into the drill.

Kuroo suddenly put his hand on his forehead, hushing him even though Kenma made no attempt to protest.

“It’s hard to tell if you’re sick,” he said with a click of his tongue. “After all, you’ve been practicing, so it’d make sense for your head to be warm.” Kuroo pulled his hand away, still squatting rather than sitting down all the way. Kenma only nodded in reply.

“Do you feel alright? Aside from your face, obviously.” Kuroo had none of his normal sarcasm or smart remarks, but he managed to hide the majority of his worry from his expression, instead looking almost bored.

“I don’t know.”

“Wow, that helps a lot.” The brief return of Kuroo’s sarcasm was surprisingly comforting.

“Well do you feel like you’re gonna puke?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Do you feel dizzy?”

“I don’t know...maybe a little.”

“Huh,” Kuroo looked at him intently, thinking.

“You didn’t eat enough today.” Kenma didn’t know how someone who could forget to take his socks off when he showered could remember such trivial details about everything _he_ did. He thought back to everything he did that day, and found it to be a blur. A blur that indeed involved very little food, he now realized. He glanced up at Kuroo and nodded.

“Alright, then,” he said, using Kenma’s knees to stand up again, “I’ll bring you something, but you should sit out. At least until you can think straight.” Kenma nodded absently.

 

Kuroo brought him some kind of protein bar, and despite crinkling his nose at it, he finished it off. A few minutes later, Naoi stopped by to see how he felt. The coach told him that it was best he simply let today’s practice go, rather than take any risks, and politely threw out the melted ice for him. Kenma rejoined the team as Nekomata gathered everyone together for the end discussion.

“Now you may have noticed something different about practice today,” Nekomata began. “Something _off_.” Kenma stared intently at his feet, avoiding the looks his teammates gave him.

“Tomorrow, we’ll be facing off against Karasuno. I realize this is short notice for a meet, but it seems that geezer’s grandson wants a fight.” He laughed to himself.

“If I were a superstitious man, I’d say that some of you had already picked up on this odd energy! But it’s nothing that getting worked up about will help. Just get plenty of rest, and get here on time!”

Was Kenma’s face melting? It felt like it was melting. Well, it still hurt a little from the ball, but it probably shouldn’t feel like it was melting. The entire way home, Kuroo kept finding new ways to make his phone malfunction, and helping him solve problem after problem was the only thing to keep him from completely losing his mind worrying about the match. He plugged his phone in to charge once he got home, and after dinner he saw that Shouyou had in fact texted him. About thirty times. He apparently discovered that he fell asleep on Kenma, and apologized for that for half of the messages, and then found out about the meet, and spent the other fifteen- wait, he got another, now it’s six-... seventeen- talking about how excited he was. His head flopped down to his chest as he tried to figure out how to reply. Once he did, Shouyou replied just as eagerly as ever. Their conversation was much shorter, as Kenma insisted that Shouyou needed to get sleep before their match. Shouyou agreed wholeheartedly, and thanked Kenma relentlessly for telling him how late it was. Despite the early hour, at least for him, Kenma tried to sleep as well. He soon found the effort to be useless, and picked up his DS, hoping to make some progress into the actual story of the game.

The next day was too much like the previous. This time, Kuroo brought food out with him to force onto Kenma on their walk to the train, and wouldn’t return his game or his phone until he finished his lunch. Kenma insisted it wasn’t his fault he was a naturally slow eater, but Kuroo simply shrugged, adding half his egg to Kenma’s lunch after helping himself to his friend’s pork.

 

All the way to the gym, and then during warm-ups, Kuroo kept glancing down at Kenma. He insisted he was fine, and Kuroo insisted he wasn’t worried. Neither of them believed each other. The conversations of his teammates were eventually underlaid with voices from the hallway, boisterous and energetic. Karasuno had finally showed up, apparently late due to some terrible traffic. The coaches happily intermingled, poking fun at each other as they loved to.

 

And then there he was, bouncing more than he was walking alongside a crowd of much taller people, like a dog trying to see over a fence. Shouyou caught sight of Kenma and started waving enthusiastically before his captain pulled him along to get warmed up for the match. Kenma ducked his head down and hurried to his own team huddle.

  


At long last, the game finally finished, releasing Kenma from tedious attempts to focus and unsuccessful attempts to keep himself from staring at Shouyou. The opposing coaches dismissed them from their discussions, and he pulled on his warm-ups as the teams got to work cleaning up the gym and chatting with their opponents. His phone and DS were still in his jacket pockets. He was just making his way over to take down the net when he heard his name being called. He looked over to see Shouyou running up to him, still panting and sweaty from the meet.

“Kenma! Kenma!” Shouyou jumped into place on the other side of the volleyball net, which still stood between them like a divider.

“I’m so excited to see you again! The dump shot you did was so cool!”

“Oh, y-yeah…”

“And did you see the toss Suga-san gave me? I think I’m really getting the spikes down!” Kenma couldn’t find the words, starting to nervously play with his hair. The redhead had eyes the size of the moon that were shining so brightly Kenma couldn’t think straight. Not that it was so easy before, either. The Karasuno coach suddenly called him, and Shouyou turned so fast Kenma worried that he might have gotten whiplash.

“Okay!” He shouted back, “I’ll be right there!” Shouyou looked back at Kenma for a second, indecisive, before throwing himself under the net to engulf him in a hug. His heart raced, and he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.

“I missed you a lot, Ke-” He didn’t finish the sentence as Kenma pried himself away in absolute panic, almost shoving Shouyou to the ground in the process. They stared at each other, Shouyou in confusion, Kenma in terror. He tried to say something, anything, but nothing would come out.

“Kenma, d-” Kenma turned tail and sprinted away before he could say anything else. He burst through the gym doors in a much bigger scene than he meant to make, but he didn’t care. He ran down the unforgivingly long walkway and into the volleyball club room. By the time he threw himself into a corner and buried himself behind whatever he could, he was panting. His shaking hands pulled out the DS from his jacket pocket, desperate for a distraction. There were footsteps drawing near, and a voice calling out.

 

Kuroo was following him, why did Kuroo have to follow him? He didn’t want to talk to him, he didn’t want to talk to anyone. All he wanted was to duck back into his game and forget about Shouyou, forget about talking to him, forget about his crush. Maybe even forget that Shouyou existed at all. The door opened and closed.

“Hey, Kenma.” No. No no no no no. He flipped the switch on his DS, too upset to be startled any farther by the startup sound. The music from the menu started playing, and Kenma rushed to turn down the volume.

“I already heard your game, Kenma.” Kuroo grunted as he hit his head on something in the dark.

“I know you’re in here somewhere.” Kenma did his best to focus on the 16-bit avatar moving around the screen, but he couldn’t remember what he was trying to accomplish. He opened the menu, running through all the items, then closed it and started moving in and out of buildings at random, hoping that something would jog his memory, but all he could remember was the way Shouyou’s face looked when he tried to speak. The confusion. The worry. The hurt when he ran off.

His eyes stung. He wiped away tears with the heel of his hand before they started to fall. This was that game Shouyou was interested in. Kenma had brought it just to show him- not that he would bring it to Shouyou and say “hey look, it’s that game you like” or something like that. He liked the game as well, and thought that if he played it in the gym, Shouyou might notice, and come over to ask about it. That idea had fallen through.

“There you are,” Kuroo sighed, “What happened?”

Kenma dropped his head to hide his face.

“What’s going on?” The avatar walking through an open field stopped as battle music picked up and a fight began.

“Kenma, talk to me.” Kuroo pushed the brooms and empty boxes aside so he could sit down next to him. He said nothing. Kuroo sighed again.

“Okay,” he said, “Okay.” They sat together illuminated only by the DS screen, listening to the sounds of game battle. He dug around his pockets to find a mangled tissue to offer Kenma as the tears began to fall. Even as Kuroo checked his phone, telling his friend that Karasuno had left, they said nothing else. Kuroo did not return to the gym, and gave the team no ending speech. He stayed at Kenma’s side. Together they walked to the train station and home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As ever, I love any and all types of comments and feedback! Thanks for reading <3


	3. Once Bitten, Twice Shy

Kenma stayed home the next day. They knew he wasn’t sick, but his parents let him stay in bed, anyway. This was a regular occurrence. They liked to say that they kept his “sick” days to a certain number a month, at least when talking to other parents that knew, but his parents didn’t pretend that they could force him to go to school. They loved him dearly, and being fairly sensitive themselves, found it almost impossible not to empathize with their nervous child. 

 

“Shy-days,” they were called.

 

It was a simple routine. If he didn’t come down for breakfast, one of his parents would ask if he was going to school that day. If he said no, they would tuck him back in, kiss his forehead, and wish him well, encouraging plenty of rest, and trying to eat a little- but only if he could. The other parent would pop in to repeat the process. The already limited texting was cut-off altogether for the day, and Kenma would find any necessary information on little notes throughout the house. His father was partial to tucking them into the cat’s collar. His mother preferred to leave them on top of whichever game she thought was his current favorite. 

 

The catch was usually for him to spend more time with Kuroo- seemingly to help with his “insecurity,” as it was dubbed. His parents usually assumed that was the problem, his anxieties and introversion, and found that Kuroo was excellent at gently drawing him back into group settings, whether after needing to miss school or while hiding from classmates at school functions. In essence, Kuroo was perfect for practicing “social skills”, not that his parents would ever think that. At least… not in so many words.

 

Kenma couldn’t sleep, as much as he tried. His phone went off repeatedly, about the time just before school would have started. He didn’t need to check it to know that it would be Shouyou. Kuroo wouldn’t need to text him; Kenma’s parents would probably tell him if he didn’t figure out on his own that his friend wasn’t coming.

 

Should he look or shouldn’t he? His phone went off a few more times, then went silent. Ignoring the messages, he picked up some of the assigned reading for school. How sad could he be to actually do his homework? He spent an hour or two filling the pages with annotations on sticky-notes his mother had gotten him, hoping that the cute animal stationery would encourage his studies. (She was overjoyed to learn that it actually worked. All the more so to hear that they tended to find their way into the books of half of Kenma’s classmates.) When he tired of literature, he moved on to his games. As he was about to pull his DS towards him, he noticed a note left on top of it. In the same cute animal stationery, his mother left a quick note telling him about the various foods in the fridge.

 

He decided to follow the note’s advice, out of the warm safety of his blankets, down the stairs, through the living room, into the kitchen. Kenma paused to look out the window, his attention caught by the excessively bright sunlight. The sky was perfectly clear, and he had to squint to see even when he wasn’t looking outside. He pulled the shades down, hoping to avoid any more of a headache than he already had from this thing with Shouyou.  _ Oh, Shouyou. What could he say? Could anything fix this? _ He wasn’t sure if he wanted to fix it, _ if _ it was fixable. Maybe it would be easier to stop being friends, to just pretend this never happened and go back to exactly how he was before they ever met.

 

He sighed, shuffling over to the fridge. There was no way he could do that. Not to Shouyou. He must be upset. He was so excited to see Kenma, and when he went for a hug, he got shoved away instead. Kenma was not going to cry about this anymore, stop it, stop thinking about it, mom definitely left another note in here somewhere, just find it and do what it says, focus on that instead. It’s not on the strawberries, not on the half-empty pot of beans, not on the-... what even is that? Well, it’s not there either, not on the door, not  _ in _ the door… ah, there- next to the yogurt. Why did they have so much yogurt? He had never seen either of his parents eat yogurt in his entire life, yet there were two oversized containers taking up a third of the shelf.  _ Yogurt is supposed to be good for your immune system and your digestion, please try some!  _ Well, that explained it, he supposed. Attached was a recipe for a smoothie that he could use, filled with a few notes his mother made after she tried it herself this morning. Oh, his mother even included a little doodle of a cat. She gave it a bow-tie and dress shirt, too. Kenma was always grateful she understood how helpful it was that she didn’t text try to text him on his shy-days.

 

Maybe his team didn’t get the memo.

 

By the time he had finished the process of lazily measuring ingredients and haphazardly blending them into mush (almost forgetting to put the lid on first,) and then trudged back upstairs with his oddly colorful straw-adorned sludge, his phone was going off practically nonstop. He made a noise of agitation, putting the drink aside to hurry over to his phone. After almost dropping it a few times amid all of its vibrating, he managed to unlock his phone and open to about 20 messages from his teammates. Kenma struggled to read through the older messages as newer texts relentlessly came in at the same time. A text from Yaku telling everyone to shut up finally slowed the texts until they came to a complete stop after half a minute.

 

It seemed to be a mix of group and individual messages, mostly people having a conversation through Kenma, rather than with him, to a conversation they were having in person. It was a lot of people asking him questions and then other people telling the first people that they shouldn’t ask that, they should ask this instead, and then them asking Kenma that question in an individual message. The final two messages were both Yaku- one in the group, and one individual- telling everyone to shut up so that Kenma could actually respond to something, and then apologizing to Kenma for the chaos and letting him know that they would wait for him to catch up,  _ if _ he wanted to respond. Yaku made sure to tell him that he didn’t have to answer if he didn’t want to.

 

He opened the group chat.

_>_ ___Ca lm_

 _>_ _down ._

 

It came out in two messages, and Kenma felt his face flush at the awkward typing. He couldn’t help it, though. His hands shook, and even he didn’t know why this time. The rest of the group held their tongues, except for Yamamoto, who insisted over roughly 15 different texts that he was totally and completely calm, he just wanted to know if Kenma’s head had exploded from yesterday, because it sure as hell looked like it did, and did he need any help glueing it back together, because he could do that if Kenma needed it. The group slowly descended back into chaos as everyone began to react to that all at once. Kenma simply sighed, and was about to turn his phone off before Yaku once again demanded silence. After a few undisturbed seconds, Yaku sent another text.

_< (Yaku)_ _Kenma, can we do something to help?_

He thought about it for a second, then thought better of it.

_>_ _No._

 _< (Yamamoto)_ _If ur sick we could bring you some soup_

 _>_ _Ple ase don’t._

 _< (Yamamoto)_ _hey too l8 man soup is already on its way_

 _<_ _hope you like it bro B)_

 _<_ _I don’t wa nt soup._

 _< (Lev)_ _I can bring some tea!!! :0_

 _>_ _I ha ve my own I don’t want yo urs._

 _< (Fukunaga)_ _Are you sure? You seem to be having trouble typing_

_                              bc of ur headcold. maybe soup would help _

_>_ _No._

 _< (Lev)_ _tea is good for the nerves!!!!!!_

 _>_ _And you’re n ot so do n ‘ t come._

 _< (Yamamoto)_ _ouch man. that’s cold._

 _< (Lev)_ _:’O !!_

 

As more messages came in, Kenma put his phone aside. He trudged back over to his smoothie, now thinner after partially melting. He drank half of it morosely, then set it aside. He looked around him in disinterest, trying to decide what to do with himself now. He settled back into his game from before, the one Shouyou liked. Not that Kenma was thinking about  _ that _ though; it was just a game he wanted to play, that he bought for himself, and would enjoy by himself. Alone. Without talking about it to anyone. Not even when he defeated the boss that had been giving him trouble. Or when he was freaking out because of the newest development with a companion. (It seemed like he was really close to getting into romance dialogue options.) Yeah. All by himself.

Kenma’s cat pushed her way into the room, voluminous fur bouncing with her slow steps. Sometimes she walked in like she had never been into his room before, and other times she walked in like it belonged exclusively to her. Today, she seemed bothered that she had to come all the way up to his room to find him. She jumped up to his bed, and repeatedly put her paw down and picked it up again before easing into Kenma’s lap. She left her chin and chest open, evidently displeased with her current snuggle levels. Kenma tucked his hand in between her front legs to scratch her neck while he looked over his map for the fifth time, trying to decide where to go now.

 

There was a knock at the door, overenthusiastic and loud. Kenma looked up from his game, displeased but unsurprised. His phone went off, and he knew who it was even before looking at the messages. The idiots must have actually come to his house. He looked at the clock on his nightstand. School had ended about thirty minutes ago. How long had he been playing this game? It didn’t seem like that long while he was playing it. The knock came again, louder this time, and more insistent. He wasn’t going to get the door. His phone went off again, and he leaned over to read the texts. Just as expected, Yamamoto and Lev had showed up at his door with soup and tea and were insisting on being let in.

 

With a sigh, Kenma stood up, displacing the cat, who gave a squeaky meow of complaint, stretched, and shuffled downstairs. He pushed aside the curtain over the window next to the door, frowning, and the two uninvited guests waved eagerly as they saw him, pointing to some large paper bags they were carrying. He wrinkled his nose and dropped the curtain. Kenma was about to walk away and simply go back upstairs to the relative peace of his room when the two started shouting to him from outside.

“Kenma, please! We’re trying to help!”

“Yeah, yeah! We want to make you feel better! We’ll try to be quiet!” Though Kenma seriously doubted their aptitude for controlled volume, he turned back anyway. He sighed deeply, wondering why he was going to do this and if it meant he had lost his mind. Kenma opened the door enough to poke his nose out. He scrunched his face at the heat, then scrunched it even more as he smelled whatever was coming from the two buffoons in front of him.

“Kenma, you’re alive!” 

“What  _ is  _ that?” He demanded, halfway hidden from behind the door.

“This?” Lev held the bag close to Kenma’s face. Kenma blanched, retreating further inside.

“What happened to tea?”

“I made that too, don’t worry! But this here is a family recipe- it helps clear the sinuses. I thought you might have a cold, so I made it extra strong today!”

“Might have made it too strong, even.” Yamamoto said, side-eyeing the bag. It was growing damp in places, and because Lev held it at the top by the scrunched up opening, it sagged at the bottom under its own weight. Kenma considered keeping it in case he ever needed a slow and painful death in the future. That, or to feed to Lev the next time he was annoying. Kenma wouldn’t have to wait long for that.

“Can we come inside?” Lev stepped in close, and Yamamoto followed.

“Yeah! We need to help you get better! Fluff your pillows and bring you tons of water and whatever!” Kenma only grumbled in reply. They pleaded more loudly, and Kenma opened the door. 

“Alright! You are going to be so damn healthy after this, your immune system won’t know what hit it!”

“Yeah, yeah!”

“Oh, right-  _ thank you for having us! _ ” Yamamoto recited as he toed off his shoes. He held a stilted smile for a second, then jabbed Lev, who fumbled to take his shoes off as well.

“Yes-! You have a very nice house.” Yamamoto gave him a look, trying to prompt him into saying something else, but Lev simply looked at him in bewilderment. Yamamoto grunted, then turned back to Kenma with a bright smile.

“So, which way is your kitchen?” Kenma hesitated, then lead the way.

“Follow me.” Lev almost tripped into Yamamoto, trying not to be left behind as he finally worked free of his shoes.

“Hey, nice kitchen!” Yamamoto dropped his bag on the table. He looked around the room as he unpacked the bag’s contents.

“Yeah- nice kitch- _ heeeyy _ !!! These are so cute!” Lev practically threw Kenma to the ground as he pushed his way to the fridge. He stood frozen in front of it, completely entranced by the notes his mother left on the cute animal stationery. 

“Hey, is there a reason the shades are all closed?” Yamamoto looked back to Kenma.

“It’s too sunny out. It gives me a headache.”

“Migraines?” He asked. “Because you don’t look like you have a cold.”

“It’s… not that kind of sick day.”

“Ah, I see, I see.” Yamamoto nodded appreciatively, making it all the more obvious that he didn’t see at all what Kenma meant. He finished unpacking his bag, and scrunched the paper up. He shoved it into Lev’s face.

“So! Let’s see what I’ve made!” Lev nodded excitedly, eager to free his face from the bag. They gathered around the table.

“To start: hot onion water!”

“Hot onion water?” Lev and Kenma asked together.

“Yes! Some onion, a little ginger, and a couple spoonfuls of honey over a cup of hot water!” Yamamoto said triumphantly. “Supposed to be good for stuffy noses. Still hot.” He passed the open thermos to Kenma. Kenma sniffed it. Unpleasant, but probably not lethal. He set it aside.

“We have soooooome... grilled spring onion. That’s good for stuffy noses  _ and _ sore throats. Apparently it helps with circulation and inflammation.” Yamamoto held it up for Kenma to smell. It was strong, but unfamiliar.

“Inflammation?” Lev asked.

“Yeah, like when you get all swollen in places, I think.” Lev nodded, much more interested in the food than Kenma was. 

“We also have... some umeboshi, but I haven’t added them to tea yet.”

“What do those do?” Kenma looked back at Yamamoto from over the plate of pickled plums.

“They make you sweat a lot. I think sweating is supposed to help you get rid of whatever nasty shit is, well, making you feel like nasty shit.”

“How eloquent.”

“Yeah, right?” All three of them looked over the spread that Yamamoto had prepared, the second-year looking particularly pleased with himself. Kenma didn’t want to encourage them by saying anything, but he couldn’t contain his curiosity.

“How did you come up with all this?”

“I just asked my grandma.” Yamamoto answered. “I got sick a lot as a kid, but then she came to live with us, and whatever the hell she makes me just beats my illness into submission. It’s pretty fuckin’ cool, man.” Yamamoto grinned widely at Kenma.

“But she didn’t make these!” He added quickly. “I made them myself.”

“That was… thoughtful… of you.” Kenma mumbled. “...thanks.”

“Oh. Well, you’re welcome.” Yamamoto looked a little surprised. It made sense. Kenma never said thank you to anyone, let alone to Yamamoto, who never did much of anything worth thanking him for. Unless you liked going a little deaf by standing too close to him.

“Hey, Lev, what’s in that bag, anyway?” Yamamoto leaned past Kenma. “Though… I’m kind of afraid to ask.”

“Oh! I almost forgot!” Lev dropped the bag onto the table, making it shake from the weight. He reached in, and set a small thermos, evidently filled with tea, down on the table. He then pulled out something wrapped in foil.

“Dude… what is  _ in _ there?”

“Ummm…. cabbage leaves, garlic…”

“Okay, pretty normal-”

“Liver, a little gizzard…”

“Less normal, alright.”

“Turpentine, some eggshells, a couple worms…”

“Lev.” Kenma moved behind Yamamoto, hiding from the thing in the foil. It was dripping condensation onto the table. 

“What?” Lev looked at them. “There’s still more stuff-”

“Lev, what the fuck.”

“Yeah, I’m, um. I’m not sure I read the recipe right.”

“Are you sure that thing isn’t radioactive?” Lev looked down at it.

“Ummm…. Probably not. Do you think it’s safe to put this in the trash?”

“Here.” Yamamoto held the paper bag open for him, and Lev dropped it back in. Yamamoto put it inside the other paper bag, as well, before tucking it into a series of plastic bags Kenma held open for him. He dropped the thing, seven layers and all, into the trash bin.

“You should probably eat something.” Lev said. Yamamoto and Kenma both gave him a look.

“I’m not really hungry.” He wandered off in the direction of his room, and the two followed at his heels, with Lev stumbling on the steep stairs. Kenma flopped onto his bed. Yamamoto and Lev helped themselves to open space on the floor. His phone went off again, startling everyone. It was Yaku.

 

 _<_ _Kenma do you want me to come kick them out for you?_

 _>_ _they’re… tolerable right now. I guess._

“Who is it? Is it Yaku-san?” Lev sat up straighter. “Tell him how helpful we’re being!”

> _never mind kick them out_

_ <                     _ _ I’m on my way. Just a heads up, I’m going to say that  _

_                      they’re missing practice and Kuroo told me to get them. _

_<_ _Which is true, actually._

 _>_ _thanks._

“So who was that, just now?” Yamamoto asked.

“It was Yaku.”

“Did you tell him how great we are?” Lev bounced in his spot.

“You’re supposed to be at practice, he says.” Yamamoto let out a choking sound. Lev stopped bouncing.

“Oh.  _ Right _ .”

“He’s on his way.”

“I was hoping that it would be your weird country friend.” Yamamoto sighed.

“‘Country friend’?”

“Yeah, that kid that you’re always talking to, the one that lives out in the middle of nowhere.” He said. “Mostly I wanted it to be anyone but Yaku.” He added as an aside.

“He was at the match yesterday, right?” Lev asked. Kenma couldn’t believe it. What did he have to do to forget about Shouyou?

“Yeah, that was him.” Yamamoto turned to Kenma. “What happened after the match, anyway? You know, when your head exploded or something.” Kenma folded his legs up onto the bed and flipped through the apps on his phone, looking for the best way out of this conversation. He tried to ignore the heat rising to his cheeks.

_<_ _I’m almost there._

“Was that Yaku-san again?” Lev asked.

“Yeah. He’s close.” Lev turned to Yamamoto with fear in his eyes.

“He’s gonna kill us, isn’t he.”

“Oh absolutely.” Yamamoto had fully accepted his oncoming death, from the looks of it.

“So are you coming back to school tomorrow?” Yamamoto asked. Kenma shrugged, turning up the volume of his game.

“Well, how sick are you?”

“I wasn’t sick today.”

“You weren’t?!” Yamamoto and Lev both scrambled closer to him, as if he had done something actually worth their shock.

“Does that mean… you played _ hooky _ ?” Yamamoto almost seemed excited by the prospect.

“I wasn’t feeling well, but I wasn’t sick…” Kenma tried to explain.

 

A knock at the door interrupted them, followed by a text from Yaku confirming his arrival. Kenma led the circus troupe downstairs to let him in.

“Yaku-san! How nice to see you!” Yamamoto pushed past Kenma to greet Yaku himself. “We’re so sorry to have missed practice, but a certain sickly kitten needed some attention.” Lev nodded adamantly, hoping their obvious good will could buy them some leeway.

“You haven’t missed all of it, yet, idiots.” Yaku said. “You’re both coming back with me for the rest of it.”

“We can’t leave yet, Yaku-san- ” Lev pushed Kenma back from the other side. “Kenma hasn’t had anything to eat!”

“What does that have to do with you two?” Yaku asked, narrowing his eyes in suspicion.

“We made him food, Yaku-san! Didn’t you read the group chat?”

“I can’t believe you two  _ actually _ made him… what did you even make him?”

“All kinds of home remedies!” Yamamoto chimed in. “Things that are certain to help him feel better in no time at all!”

“Yeah, exactly!” Lev added. “So we can’t go until he has something.” They crossed their arms, pleased with their flawless argument. Yaku sighed and rolled his eyes.

“I guess I might as well come in then, instead of letting out all the cold air.” Yaku squeezed between everyone to get through the doorway.

“Besides, someone needs to make sure that stuff is actually edible.” He kicked the door closed behind him, forcing Yamamoto to jump out of the way to avoid getting caught in its path.

“So which way is the kitchen?” The group tromped back to the kitchen again, staring blankly at the spread on the table.

“I have to admit, it doesn’t all seem entirely terrible.” Yaku said. “So, which do you think you want to eat?”

“None of it.” Kenma made a face.

“Really? Well, maybe you could try a little of whatever is supposed to help what you have.”

“But it’s not that kind of sick day.” Lev interjected.

“What do you mean?”

“That’s what Kenma said- ‘it’s not that kind of sick day.’” Lev turned to Yaku after thinking for a second. “What does that mean, Yaku-san?”

“Umm, well…” Yaku looked at Kenma.  “I would guess it’s a… mental health day… sort of thing.”

“Is this because of yesterday, after the match?” Yamamoto asked. Yaku grimaced.

“Jeez, at least  _ try _ to be subtle!”

“...yeah.”

“What?” All three turned to look at Kenma in surprise.

“It- it is… because of yesterday.” Kenma stared at the floor.

“Did that red-headed kid say something that upset you?” Yaku asked.

“Yeah, do we need to beat him up for you?” Yamamoto offered.

“No, he didn’t say anything.” Kenma said. “It… I just over-reacted.”

“What did he do?” Yaku asked.

“I just… got really embarrassed.”

“Why would you be embarrassed?” Yaku asked. Kenma ducked his head lower, trying to hide his face.

“Oh. I see.”  Yaku scratched the back of his head, looking away sheepishly.

“What?” Lev looked between Kenma and Yaku.

“I don’t kno-oooohhhhhh…” Yamamoto suddenly understood. “ _ Ohhhhhhhhh.” _ He turned to Kenma with wide eyes. He fell into a badly covered grin.

“What is it?” Lev whispered.

“He’s only  _ love _ sick.” Yamamoto whispered back.

“Kenma has a crush?!” Lev gasped. Yamamoto nodded.

“I’m so proud.”

“Shut up about it!” Yaku hissed. “You two don’t tell _ anyone  _ about this, understand?” Lev and Yamamoto grabbed onto each other in fear, nodding.

“I said,  _ understand _ ?”

“Yes, Yaku-san!”

“Good! We’re going back to practice  _ now _ , so start walking!” Yaku waited until they left the kitchen to put their shoes on.

“Hey,” Yaku turned to Kenma, his voice much softer. “I’m sorry they were so much trouble. And for, you know…”

“It’s okay.”

“Let me know if I can do anything to help, okay?”

“Sure.”

 

He watched Yaku literally kick them out the door, bowing politely as he closed the door after him. Kenma stood there a while after their loud arguing faded, unsure what to do in their absence. He aimlessly padded back into the kitchen, staring at the food left out. (He tried not to see the film left from Lev’s concoction.) After staring for a minute, he picked up the onion water and took a sip. He crinkled his nose at the sharp taste, smacking his lips a little, then took another sip. Kenma brought it back to his room and set it next to the smoothie. He paused, then grabbed a handful of tissues and wiped off the condensation that collected on his nightstand and set a few dry tissues underneath both drinks.

 

He checked the clock again. 4:19. Kenma practically threw himself onto his bed, suddenly exhausted. He pulled the sheets up over his head and curled into a ball, too tired to block out the encroaching thoughts of Shouyou.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry for how long it took to update this, hopefully the length helps make up for the delay! There was a pretty major change to the plot, on top of some personal issues that got in the way. The next couple chapters shouldn't take nearly as long to come out, so thanks for sticking in there!  
> I love to hear your feedback, in whatever form it comes, and thank you for reading! <3


	4. Teamwork Makes the Dream Work?

He was confused when he woke up. Kenma always ran on what was certainly less than healthy amounts of sleep, but as he waited for fatigue to overtake him, he found that it never came. He waited longer and longer for exhaustion to strike, to feel sleep pulling him back in, and was met with nothing. At last he messily threw the sheets back from his head, sat up, and looked around. Sunlight leaked through the curtains, softly illuminating the room enough to see. It was early morning, and he had somehow slept the entire night. He was awake before being woken up by either his parents or the alarm or even Kuroo, and felt awake, well-rested even. Kenma didn’t like it. This couldn’t bode well.

His parents were quietly happy to know that he was going back to school. At breakfast, his father set down a small bag filled with the plates and thermoses his teammates had left with him, organized and tidy so that he could return them without having to fumble through his bag. His mother bustled by and tucked what looked like a thank-you note in each thermos, kissed his head, and shooed him out the door with all of his things.

Kenma stood outside dumbly. What was he doing out here? For a few minutes, reality fell apart and Kenma couldn’t remember the order of things. Then Kuroo left his house, and Kenma realized that he was never out before Kuroo, and that’s why he was confused. They walked in silence, Kuroo politely not commenting on his meltdown. As they sat on the train, Kuroo suddenly jolted upright.  
“Oh, I almost forgot!” He dug into his pocket. “Check it out.” He held out a new smartphone, touch-screen and all.  
“Is that case bulletproof?” Kenma asked, screwing up his face at the sight of it.  
“I’d hope so for how bulky it is.” He smiled. “You saw how much I dropped my old phone. And this one is more prone to shattering into a hundred pieces, so... ugly, yes, necessary, absolutely.”  
“I’m surprised you managed to get it set up on your own.”  
“I had the guy at the store help me.” Kuroo shrugged.  
“Here.” Kenma held out his hand. “Let me do it.” Kuroo handed him his phone without protest, leaning in and squinting to see as Kenma rearranged and reconfigured his phone, reducing battery consumption, and moving apps he wasn’t likely to use into folders so he didn’t hit the wrong squares with his dumb fingers. When they reached their stop, Kuroo steered his friend out of the station and to school as he finished explaining everything without looking away from the screen. He didn’t hand his phone back until he was in front of his classroom, and Kuroo was waving goodbye.

Suddenly Kenma was left alone with only his school-bag, the bag of dishes, and his thoughts. He trudged to his seat, and let his bags slide to the ground out of his hand and off his back. He used his feet to push them to the side of his desk before plopping into his chair. Despite his fears, the rest of the day passed by without incident. 

He waited for his classmates to ask him questions- where was he yesterday, what happened, was he sick, was it something contagious, was he feeling better? He imagined a horde of them cloaked in shadow, swarming his desk until he had to hide beneath it as they came in closer and closer. But they never came, of course. Students missed school now and then. Kenma’s absence wasn’t breaking news; it was, for everyone else at least, an ordinary school day. 

By forcing himself to focus every ten seconds or so, he somehow managed to feel like he was still sitting in his seat at school, and not astral-projecting into a nightmare realm full of Shouyou’s hurt expression fading in and out while he was surrounded by the glares of Shouyou’s teammates. Sometimes he even felt aware of what he was writing throughout class. The cartoon figures printed onto the corners of each page helped distract him every now and again.

When lunch rolled around, Kenma was numb. The world around him just sort of happened, and he was just sort of walking to his normal spot at lunch where he always met Kuroo. He said hello and sat down without any intention, moving on autopilot. The two sat in silence, and Kenma’s mind slowly dragged itself back into the moment as he grew more and more worried about why Kuroo wasn’t saying anything.

Kenma’s phone vibrated next to him. His eyes darted over to see that it was another text from Shouyou. Kenma quickly looked away, trying to appear unaffected by it. He hadn’t missed Kuroo’s eyes looking over too, but his friend said nothing. Kenma looked over at him, and Kuroo looked back, raising his eyebrows in feigned confusion. Kenma shook his head, and Kuroo went back to eating, pretending he hadn’t noticed anything. What was he trying to do? Kuroo never let this sort of thing go, normally. All throughout lunch, he waited for Kuroo to ask about Shouyou, to make a comment about his phone lighting up, something, anything, but he never did. He walked Kenma back to class, waved goodbye, and left with a smile.

If nothing else, Kenma was certainly getting better at answering questions he hadn’t heard. He was barely listening to the teacher, let alone paying attention to the topics. Now that he was back inside his own head, able to think with actual words, he couldn’t stop thinking about Shouyou. He wanted to piece things back together, but he couldn’t figure out how. Over and over he wrote messages in his head, ways to pick things back up, but they all lead to the same place. What happened? Why did he run? Did he do something wrong? There were too many questions he couldn’t answer. 

Practice came and went as usual, with a surprisingly short conversation with Nekomata regarding his absence. Kuroo must have already talked to him. Kenma spent most of the time along the sidelines, offering insight for the team instead of practicing, himself. The coaches apparently felt he clearly hadn’t been feeling well the whole week, and wanted him to get back in slowly.

The rest of the team had nothing else to say about Kenma’s episode at the match, at most simply asking if he was feeling better. Even Yamamoto and Lev were very quiet about Kenma returning their dishes. At least, as quiet as they could ever be. Kuroo probably talked to the team, too, or maybe Yaku did. He could easily picture Yaku standing with his hands on his hips warning the team not to make a big deal out of Kenma missing school. The image made him feel a little better.

Practice was over too soon and then not nearly soon enough. Kuroo said nothing in the locker room, and the rest of the team did their best not to comment further, with only a few lapses. After Kuroo’s silence continued all the way to the train, Kenma finally worked himself up to speak.  
“Did you talk to the team for me?”  
“All they needed to know was that you weren’t feeling well enough to go to school,” Kuroo answered, shrugging with convincing nonchalance as only he could do, “It wasn’t really their business past that. We have some nosy kids on our team.”  
“Thanks.”  
“It’s what I’m here for.”

His phone still buzzed once or twice when he got home, and Kenma tried his best not to read the messages from Shouyou. Bits and pieces still came in as he instinctively checked the text at the top of his screen before forcing himself to look away. As much as he wanted to put Shouyou on Do Not Disturb to avoid his message altogether… he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Part of him still liked seeing that Shouyou was talking to him, in an unfortunate sort of way. The pieces he saw didn’t seem like Shouyou hated him. Not that it stopped Kenma from being completely convinced that he definitely had to hate him after he shoved him away. He turned his phone off as images of Shouyou’s hurt expression formed in his head, trying, as ever, to distract himself with his game.

 

The mind-numbing exhaustion that greeted Kenma the next morning like an elephant sitting, specifically, on his face was far more familiar. He could still barely see by the time his parents were kissing his forehead as he stumbled outside. Without Kuroo there to steer him to the train station, Kenma doubted he would have made it there at all. Somewhere along the train ride, he began to wonder just how often Kuroo had to direct his wobbly steps in the morning just for him to make it to school in one piece.

Class was dull, rather than painful, and while he still paid less attention than usual, he felt like he was making progress not thinking about Shouyou at every moment. Nope. Definitely…. was not thinking about him. Totally fine. Totally.

Okay he was thinking about him. Supposing, somehow, by some bizarre turn of events, he managed to go back to being friends with Shouyou, then what? Where did he go from there? Just go on being totally platonic, just-friends and definitely not something else? Yes, Kenma liked him, but what about Shouyou? He was always so excited to talk to Kenma. He always went out of his way to text him, even to the point of getting into some trouble, or staying up entirely too late. But why? Because they were friends? They went to different schools and didn’t seem to have all that much in common, but maybe that didn’t matter to him. After all, he seemed to make friends with most people he talked to. But then again, Shouyou loved volleyball more than anything in the entire world. Maybe he thought that he could get Kenma to be passionate about volleyball, too. Then again, Shouyou loved just about everything with more enthusiasm in a second than Kenma felt in an entire month. He couldn’t help but worry that he probably wasn’t so important to take up so much of Shouyou’s time, like maybe Shouyou smiled that way at everyone.

While he knew he hadn’t fallen asleep because he was looking at the board, he felt like he suddenly woke up as his mind snapped back into focus as the other students around him started standing up to leave the room. He stood up out of his seat, wobbling a bit as the sudden movement made his eyes go dark for a moment, and went to find Kuroo in his daze.

When he finally found him, Kuroo had an odd look in his eyes- or eye, rather- that even Kenma couldn’t quite place. His only answer when Kenma mentioned it was to shrug, asking if he thought he was making up a nefarious scheme with Bokuto all along. Kenma only pouted before sitting down, and Kuroo smirked as he sat down too. For a few minutes there was silence.  
“You didn’t brush your hair very well this morning.” Kuroo said.  
“I never do.” Kenma frowned. Kuroo merely nodded thoughtfully, and the conversation dropped back into silence for a while.  
“Did you eat breakfast today?”  
“A little.”  
“That’s good.”  
“Did you?”  
“Of course.” Kenma stared at Kuroo, his head turned halfway down, but Kuroo never looked up. Once more, silence overtook them.  
“I’m really glad I got this new phone.” Kuroo said suddenly, pulling out said phone. “I started getting more people’s numbers since, y’know, I actually want to talk to them now that it’s so much easier.” Kenma didn’t react. Kuroo scratched the back of his head for a moment, then braced an elbow on the table, resting his head on his chin.  
“So I talked to Hinata. He was really worried. He thought he upset you,” Kuroo said, facing his head to the side, trying to keep things normal. “And apparently you haven’t been answering any of his texts.” Kuroo looked at him out of the corner of his eye, knowing better than to face Kenma fully. When Kenma still didn’t respond, he continued.  
“Kenma, he’s not mad at you. He wants to be your friend. In fact, that’s the whole problem. He thinks you don’t want to be friends with him anymore.”  
“How...how am I supposed to fix this?” Kenma’s voice was only just audible, the words barely spoken.  
“It’s easy,” he answered. “Just tell him the truth about what happened, whatever it is. Then tell him you still want to be his friend. He’ll forgive you.”  
“How can you know that?”  
“Because that’s the kind of person Shrimpy is. That, and he told me himself.” Kuroo turned his head to face Kenma.  
“But… what do I say?”  
“What you mean.”  
“Huh?”  
“You say what you mean. That’s the most important. If you’re sorry, say that. If you’re not, don’t. If you want to keep being friends, if you want to see him again, if you want to keep texting at ungodly hours… say so.” Kuroo shrugged casually, like he did in any normal conversation they had, then turned away again. Kenma watched his feet for a while, thinking.  
“Kuroo,” he said at length, without looking up.  
“Eh?” Kuroo turned.  
“Thanks.”  
“Hey, what are friends for if not to talk each other through trivial drama?” Kenma snorted at that.  
“You should know.”  
“Exactly.” Kuroo grinned, and Kenma lost himself in thought, writing texts to Shouyou at the back of his mind. They sat in comfortable silence like that for a few minutes.  
“Kenma?” Kuroo stared lazily off at the clouds.  
“Huh?”  
“If you want to hold his hand, you should tell him that.” Kenma fidgeted.  
“And… if you want to go at it like crazed rabbits, you should tell him that, too.” Kuroo rolled his head to look at Kenma, who frowned at him. Kuroo laughed, throwing his hands up.  
“I can’t stand it, it’s so serious in here!” Kenma sighed loudly.  
“I do think you should tell him you like him, though.” Kuroo added, softer this time. “Maybe not like I would if I were you, but still.”  
“Alright, alright, already.” Kenma fidgeted with his hair, more annoyed than embarrassed. He was used to Kuroo talking like this- saying incredibly inappropriate things as if he were commenting on the weather, so it didn’t bother him. Hearing Kuroo say them about him and Shouyou… that made him nervous. Or embarrassed. Something unpleasant. They ate the rest of their lunch in silence, Kenma trying to keep any lewd ideas out of his head after Kuroo had gotten them in.

Class was a welcome, though brief respite from Kuroo wagging his eyebrows at Kenma every few minutes before they headed to practice. Kenma was stuck on the idea of Kuroo trying to talk to Shouyou, and somehow couldn’t get an image to form other than Kuroo sitting with Shouyou under an interrogation light, smiling an evil smirk as Shouyou trembled in front of the third-year. He had probably gotten ahold of the Karasuno captain, and contacted Shouyou that way. Oh no, what if all of Karasuno somehow knew that he liked Shouyou now? Kuroo would never have told them, but that didn’t stop the fear of the possibility from crawling around in his head.  
“You’ve been shaking your head quite a bit.” Kuroo said as they neared the gym.  
“What do you mean?” Kenma looked over. Kuroo had a wicked glint to his eye.  
“Are they good mental pictures?”  
“I’m leaving.” Kuroo reached out and grabbed him as Kenma turned around.  
“No no no, I’m screwing with you, come ooonnnnn.”

Kenma was back in practice that day, and the attention each drill demanded of him allowed him to take his mind off the idea of the entire Karasuno team personally hunting him down. Yamamoto occasionally winked at him across the court, and Lev tried to shoot him a thumbs up, not that he ever looked at him, but they left him mostly alone.

The trouble didn’t start until they were changing to leave practice.  
“Kenma, Kenma! How’s it going with… you know?!” Lev’s attempt at a whisper wasn’t much different from a normal speaking voice.  
“Yeah! How did the whole… thing go over?” Yamamoto chimed in, not wearing a shirt. “Not the thing, but the thing-thing. You know. You and you know.” Yamamoto winked more times than necessary.  
“I didn’t… say anything yet.” The two began to loudly protest his inaction, then quickly tried to play it cool when half the team looked at them in confusion.  
“Well, when’re you gonna tell him?” Yamamoto asked.  
“I don’t know if I will.”  
“But how is he supposed to know you like him if you won’t tell him?” Lev asked, entirely too loudly. The locker room suddenly stopped in dead silence.  
“Wait no! I didn’t say anything! Nobody heard that!” Lev shouted, realizing his mistake. “Forget! Forget!” He waved his hands wildly, as if he could clear the words away like they were written on a chalkboard.  
“Kenma-san likes someone?” Inuoka fumbled to finish pulling on his jersey so he could rush over. “That’s so exciting! Have you told him? When are you gonna tell him?!”  
“I wonder if he thinks you’re cute, too.” Fukunaga spoke mostly to himself.  
“Okay, now that everybody knows, I think you should ask him out!” Yaku slapped Lev on the back as soon as he said it.  
“Ow! He should though!”  
“Lev, just stop talking!”  
Kenma didn’t answer, wanting desperately for lightning to strike him dead where he stood. Even if he was inside on a perfectly sunny day.  
“He seems to like you pretty well already. He was certainly happy to see you earlier at the meet.” Yaku offered, trying to ease Kenma’s suffering.  
“Why not just ask him to come over like usual? He loves everything about Tokyo, he’ll probably run here on foot to be in Tokyo and talk to you at the same time.” Kuroo’s voice was muffled as he pulled on his jersey. “I think he likes running, too, so it’s not unlikely. He’s too determined, that Shrimpy. No one should actually run that far.”  
“You’re not helping,” Kenma grumbled in Kuroo’s general direction.  
“So what’s the plan, Kenma?” Yamamoto crowded him suddenly. “What are you gonna tell him?”  
“I don’t know,” Kenma said, “I haven’t talked to him since the match.”  
“Whaaaaaat?!” Lev gasped loudly, somehow getting even closer to Kenma. “But you always talk to him! How could you not?!” It was Kai who pulled Lev back from trying to push his face into Kenma’s out of overexcitement. Yaku let his arms hang limp as he repeatedly knocked his head into the wall.  
“What would you expect him to say after the match, Lev?” Kai asked, “It would have been at least a little awkward for anyone.”  
“Maybe we can help!” Everyone’s heads turned around to look at Inuoka in confusion.  
“Ma-maybe we could help him figure out what to say!” He explained, nervous from the attention. “They always say teamwork makes things easier, so why don’t we all work together to help Kenma talk to his crush?”  
“What do you think, Kenma?” Kai and the entire team looked at Kenma now. He focused on his sneakers as he thought, debating with himself.  
“I… suppose… I could use the help.”  
“Yeah! Ultimate team-bonding activity is a go!” Lev cheered. The others brightened, hurrying to finish changing.  
“Alright, everyone start thinking!” Kuroo said, fumbling to get his shoes on. “We’ll all sleep on it, and put our ideas together before practice tomorrow, so don’t be late!”  
“Yes captain!”

The team chat was a flurry of ideas bouncing from one person to the next all night, and throughout the next day. Kenma was surprised by how invested they all were in this. He had thought they would lose interest, but they kept asking what he thought about telling Shouyou this, and what about if you said that.

After the next practice, exhausted, sweaty, but somehow still eager to get to work, the team huddled around Kenma as he read through the texts Shouyou had sent. Kenma barely registered how close they all were. Sometimes they had to pause and peer around each other to see the emoticons Shouyou used, and sometimes one or two of them would try to look into whether or not it “meant something”. As they finally reached the last text, they settled back to discuss their attack. From the way they spoke,it would have sounded like they were planning out how to conquer a city. Kenma sat in quiet awe, oddly touched by how invested they were. Sometimes they would ask him a question about how he thought Shouyou would feel about something, and he would answer, and they would go back to debating. The more he answered, the more it struck him that he had never talked to his team this much the entire time he had been at Nekoma. And they were actually listening to him when he replied.

At long last, after writing down several drafts on scrap paper, and a few small arguments about what was too strong and what wasn’t strong enough, they dictated his message. They huddled in close as they checked it together; Kenma held his phone in one direction, then another, so that everyone could read it. They made a few edits, checked again for typos, then read through it one more time before finally agreeing it was finished.

“Okay, it’s sent.” A quick sigh ran through the team as they patted arms and bumped shoulders in momentary relief, sitting back to wait. His phone dimmed as time passed, then locked itself. He could hear his heart beating out of his chest as he sat still, waiting. The entire room waited with him, no one moving. Even Lev barely tapped his feet in anticipation. They were all breathing as one, practically in silence.

His phone sang its happy tone and Kenma’s heart swelled. The entire team seemed to inhale at once, waiting to see Kenma’s reaction.  
< I was really worried!!!! ; A ; but I’m so  
glad to hear from you again!!!

Kenma sighed in relief, suddenly exhausted as all his tension left him. The team began to clamor, drawing in close again as their voices started to overlap in excitement. And Kenma was excited right with them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said this chapter wouldn't be too long in the making, and almost a year later, life has gotten pretty crazy. There's a lot of terrible things going on in the world right now, and coming back to this fic is my attempt to put just a tiny something positive back into a really negative place. Going back through this work and finishing this chapter made my day a little bit brighter, and I hope that it can do the same for someone else.


End file.
